Is Ford Making 4 the New 8?

When the author of this article was learning how to drive a car in ’02/’03, the Ford Mustang GT had a small 4.6 liter V8 that produced 260 hp. In today’s standards, that’s considered anemic, at best. Then, shortly before I graduated high school, Ford introduced the more retro-styled Mustang that completely changed the game for muscle cars, and ushered us into the period we’re currently in. That retro-styled Mustang GT that changed so much and got everyone so hyped up had an output of….hold on to your seats….300 hp. Man…still kinda weak, right?

However, it has been quite the muscle car renaissance, hasn’t it? Not too long ago, 300 hp was more than adequate to be competitive and still have fun. Those cars still are heaps of fun to this day, in fact. But I digress. Things have changed for the (even) better.

Fast forward 15 years. The 2020 models are coming out. And they’re powerful. Really powerful. Dodge has cars with 700+ hp from the factory. The Camaro Exorcist built by specialty shop Hennessy, has 1000 hp. All of this is enough to make a company like Ford a little mad. And it looks like they’ve chanelled that madness into horsepower.

Even with the smallest V8 (compared the domestic competitors), Ford has managed to make BIG power. 460 hp from a 5-liter V8. But what’s even more interesting, is how they’ve managed to get 330 hp and 350 lb-ft of torque out of a 2.3 liter turbo engine, and still get 30 mpg on the highway. For those of you not seeing how awesome that is, that means it makes more power and torque than the V8 twice it’s size 15 years ago. In terms of performance, it should be able to perform a 0-60 dash in about 4.5 seconds.

So, all of that being said, is 4 the new 8?